Extremists Attack Iraq’s Biggest Oil Refinery

Children reaching for food handed out by aid workers Wednesday at a camp between Mosul and Erbil.

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

By ROD NORDLAND and SUADAD AL-SALHY

June 18, 2014

BAGHDAD — Refinery workers, witnesses and an Iraqi Army officer reported the seizure of Iraq’s biggest oil refinery by Sunni extremists on Wednesday after army helicopter gunships failed to repel their attack. But other Iraqi officials, including the commander of the garrison defending the refinery in Baiji, asserted that fighting was still going on inside the extensive facility, shut down by the violence.

The battle in Baiji, 130 miles north of Baghdad, came as the Obama administration, which extricated American troops from Iraq less than three years ago, was weighing a more muscular response, including airstrikes, to help the besieged government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Wednesday in Saudi Arabia that Iraq had asked for American airstrikes, according to Al Arabiya television. That would make Mr. Zebari the first top Iraqi official to publicly confirm that request, reported by The New York Times last week.

Also on Wednesday, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke by telephone with Mr. Maliki and vowed solidarity with the Iraqi people against the Sunni militants, White House officials said. The White House added that Mr. Biden emphasized the need for Mr. Maliki to govern “in an inclusive manner.”

If the insurgent takeover of Baiji is confirmed, the facility would be the first operating refinery to fall to the fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, who have swept through much of northern Iraq. They have surrounded the refinery in Baiji for the past week, fighting a battalion of the Iraqi Army that had been backed by air support.

The loss of the refinery could deny the Iraq government an important source of fuel and provide the insurgents with a potentially lucrative source of income, assuming that they can ensure its continued operation and sell the fuel, at least in the areas they control. ISIS already profits from its control of oil resources in eastern Syria.

In a televised statement, an Iraqi military spokesman, Gen. Qassim Atta, denied that the Baiji refinery had fallen.

“Baiji is now under control of our security forces, completely,” said General Atta, appearing on Iraqiya, the state television channel, hours after ISIS fighters had apparently taken over the refinery.

A local government official in Baiji, and the army commander in charge of defending the refinery, also insisted that the Iraqi authorities were still in control, although they conceded that the fighters had invaded the facility and controlled two of the four main entrances.

“We are fine, we are still inside the refinery and we are fighting,” said Brig. Gen. Arras Abdul Qadir, the commander of the troops guarding the refinery, reached by telephone Wednesday afternoon. Asked how long his troops could hold out, he said, “We will see.”

Other accounts from Baiji said the insurgents had total control. A refinery worker reached by telephone who gave only his first name, Mohammad, said that the refinery had been attacked at 4 a.m. and that workers had taken refuge in underground bunkers. An unknown number of natural gas storage tanks were set ablaze. After taking heavy losses, the troops guarding the facility surrendered, at least 70 were taken prisoner and the refinery workers were sent home unharmed, he said.

An Iraqi Army lieutenant from Baiji, also reached by telephone and speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he had fled his unit when it became clear they could not resist the ISIS forces.

Witnesses in the area also reported seeing ISIS checkpoints controlling access to the sprawling refinery area, and smoke rising over the complex from numerous fires.

The attackers had besieged the refinery for the past week, after most of the surrounding Salahuddin Province had fallen under their control.

Foreign workers, including 50 from the German company Siemens, had been evacuated from the refinery, according to news reports quoting Siemens officials. Olive Group, a security company, said it had evacuated its six clients from the refinery in recent days “in a routine road move.”

“We took the decision to extract them, having monitored the situation around the refinery closely in the last two weeks and determining that it was deteriorating,” said Martin Rudd, Olive Group’s managing director.

The complex is about halfway between Baghdad and Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which the insurgents invaded last week. The complex includes the refinery as well as a 600-megawatt power plant, which supplies electricity to much of northern Iraq. The power plant had fallen to ISIS fighters earlier.

The refinery has the capacity to process 310,000 barrels of oil a day produced in northern Iraq, and provides refined products to 11 Iraqi provinces, including Baghdad, chiefly for domestic consumption.

The oil refinery in Baiji, in 2009. It could give militants a major source of revenue.

Thaier Al-Sudani / Reuters

General Atta, in his televised statement, said Iraqi forces were continuing to fight in Baiji, and he praised the efforts of one air force pilot in particular in staving off the insurgents. “The air force is in the battle against them, with the support from the Golden Division of the special forces,” he said, referring to an elite unit that is reportedly under the prime minister’s direct control. “We will continue our operations and we will not let anyone from ISIS take one foot of our lands.”

Asked whether the refinery had fallen to ISIS, Asim Jehad, the spokesman for the oil ministry, declined to comment, saying that only General Atta was authorized to discuss security matters. An oil industry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of Iraqi government sensitivity on the issue, said the refinery had fallen to the insurgents.

General Atta also said Iraqi forces were making gains in several areas in Salahuddin and Nineveh, and had retaken the city of Tal Afar, which was reported to have fallen to the militants on Monday.

He depicted a military situation that contradicted most reports from the field so far, saying Iraqi forces had regained the initiative. “Now our forces are becoming stronger,” he said. “Now we are the ones who are taking the initiative and making the attacks, instead of defending.”

So far, the fighting has largely been isolated to cities in the north, including Mosuland Tikrit, where ISIS fighters have taken control, sending thousands of civilians fleeing to the relative safety of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. Relief workers from the United Nations refugee agency expressed concern Wednesday that temporary camps were already overcrowded, with more families arriving every day.

Iraq’s main oil fields and export facilities are clustered around Basra in the south. International oil traders are worried that the unrest could spread, threatening supplies destined for export. Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in OPEC, representing the largest source of growth among the 12 member countries.

In a separate development, Indian officials expressed concern about the fate of 40 Indian workers who disappeared after ISIS forces overran Mosul, and about 46 Indian nurses working at a hospital in Tikrit that is under the group’s control. Indian newspapers on Wednesday quoted officials who said they were worried about their citizens caught in the fighting.

“Indian workers in Mosul disappeared, probably kidnapped by ISIS,” said Yassin al-Ma’amouri, the head of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society. “Nobody knows anything about them.”

But Mr. Ma’amouri said Red Crescent workers had visited the Indian nurses at the hospital in Tikrit and found them in good condition. “Nine of them are afraid to stay here, the rest are fine,” he said. “We visited them, gave them phone cards to call their families, gave them food, pocket money.”

“They are working in the hospital now and feel fine, but on the other hand we don’t know the reaction of those gunmen of ISIS,” he said, adding that evacuating the nurses by road would be too dangerous.

Correction: June 18, 2014

An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of the Iraq head of mission for Doctors Without Borders. He is Fabio Forgione, not Favio.

An employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Tikrit, Iraq, Rick Gladstone from New York and Michael D. Shear from Washington.